


This Year

by polyproticamory



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Best Friends, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Slow Burn, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-07 15:54:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyproticamory/pseuds/polyproticamory
Summary: Ellie and Ivy, best friends since their freshman year at Zuzu University, are worn down by their jobs working at Joja corporate headquarters. When Ellie finds an old letter from her grandfather leaving her his farm, Voyage Acres, the two women leave their city life to start really living.This is the story of two friends finding their way.





	1. This Is Real Life

It was decided that since Ellie was the one who inherited the farm, she would get the small, rustic cabin at the north side of the property. Ivy got the outfitted shed just a few yards west of the main house, and one of the tasks in their long list was to fully insulate the building. It already had running water, a bathroom, and a kitchenette; Ellie’s grandfather Joseph often worked late into the night tinkering with whatever was on his workbench, and rather than enter the house at midnight and disturb his light-sleeping wife, Marjory, he used to spend the night in the shed instead.

The two women had hopped off the bus and hiked their way through the lush forest to the farmland. A finely-wrought iron sign above a gated archway announced the place as ‘VOYAGE ACRES,’ and the gate swung open with a turn of Ellie’s key. The land was overgrown with spindly green plants and slender trees, all the way up to the doorsteps of the cabin and the shed.

Ivy let out a low whistle. “Ell. This is  _ just _ like a farm sim,” she whispered, stepping closer to her friend.

“Except that this is real life,” Ellie said, turning over her shoulder to look at Ivy. “And why are you whispering?”

“ _ Because _ ,” Ivy hissed, still keeping her voice low, “doesn’t this place feel, I don’t know, a little enchanted? At least it looks the part.”

Ellie looked out at the property —  _ her _ property — for a second look.

Ivy was right. The early spring sunshine beamed through the gaps in the canopy, illuminating the vibrant undergrowth with gold and shadows. Felled trunks of old, damaged trees curved out of the sea of plants like the surfacing backs of whales. A breeze cruised through and set the leaves stirring, rolling in a wave towards Ellie and Ivy.

And there was birdsong, louder than anything Ellie had heard in Zuzu City’s parks or the surrounding suburbs. The calls seemed to echo under the treetops, weaving and wavering in improvised embellishments. She closed her eyes and stood for a moment just admiring how raucous the quiet of the valley could be.

Ivy slipped her hand into Ellie’s. They stood for a moment, two friends on a new adventure, taking a moment of respite.

*

They spent the first few days just settling in, unpacking the boxes they had sent ahead and familiarizing themselves with the map of the valley (“A  _ map _ , Ell. You can’t tell me this isn’t just like that game you were obsessed with two years ago—”). Ivy quickly decked out windows of the shed with colorful scarves and homemade tapestries that acted as curtains. Ellie used the windowsills of the cabin to display a delicately-painted set of porcelain plates, handmade by her mother. In the evenings, they would sit on Ellie’s porch and eat dinner, a citronella candle burning between them to keep the insects at bay.

On the third day, they decided to start clearing the farm to get it up and running again. Between the two of them, the work went by quickly. They found an old crosscut saw that still had its edge, and they cleared a copse of trees several yards away from the front porch. They stacked the trunks to one side until they had more time to cut it into usable pieces, uprooted the stumps, and while Ellie took a nap to recover from a minor case of heat stress, Ivy swung the scythe around to cut the tall grass and weak shrubs, providing easier access to the rich soil underneath.

They tilled minimally, mostly to chop up the cover plants and grind them into the soil so that they’d decompose into a kind of natural fertilizer. “At least,” Ellie panted as she swung the hoe into the ground, “we’re getting a workout.”

“Arms — of — steel,” Ivy said, each word punctuated with a heave of the tool in her hand. “Arms — of — steel.”

“Pretty sure it’s meant to be abs of steel.”

“Pretty sure my entire body is going to be steel at this rate.”

When the sun reached its highest point on the fourth day, they retreated to Ivy’s shed, dug up some of the ground around it, and filled a bunch of empty egg cartons they had saved with a bit of dirt and a parsnip seed.

“How long do parsnips take again?” Ivy asked, spritzing the surface with water from a spray bottle. The soil darkened, the cardboard grew damp, and she set the modest seed-starter pallet in the bright sun coming through her window.

“Two weeks, at most,” Ellie said, reading the back of the package. “We should see the first sprouts in a few days, which is when we can transfer them.”

Ivy nodded, then slid her arm around Ellie’s and held on tight. “Ell. We’re  _ doing it _ . We’re  _ farmers _ .”

Ellie rolled her eyes, but also felt a small bubble of excitement rise up to her throat. She cleared it, and squeezed Ivy’s hand. “Not yet.” She looked at her best friend and grinned.

*

For everything else that seemed to go wrong in Ellie’s life, she knew that Ivy was the one of the very few things that went right. Best friends since college, the two women stuck with each other through the rocky years of early adult life. They both were highly-educated overachievers who were supremely dissatisfied with the corporatization of their lives. The city, which had been an escape for both of them from their nondescript hometowns, grew dull and lifeless despite its high population density and ever-burning lights in the darkness of night.

They were roommates in college, and roommates after college, both working at Joja Corp in roles that suited them on paper. Ellie, patient and persistent, calm and pragmatic, answered customer calls and troubleshooted Joja memberships over the phone, quickly rising to a manager position after just a year at the entry level. Ivy, charismatic and energetic, vibrant and confident, wrote ad copy in a team in the Communications department, garnering the most hits on social media with their, ‘Just Joja,’ minimalist-inspired campaign.

But their successes became like a treadmill or a mousewheel, and they both felt like they were going nowhere fast.

“I’m tired at nine o’clock. Why am I tired at nine o’clock?” Ivy used to whine, melting into their secondhand sectional.

“Because we’re no longer eighteen and drinking Joja Jolt drinks?” Ellie said, lying spread-eagle on the floor.

“But we’re so young! We’re in our prime! We should be out there!” Ivy flailed a hand out the window of their apartment, a view of the Zuzu skyline half-obscured by another high rise.

“Doing what, though?” Ellie asked, mimicking Ivy’s hand motion. “Drinking our savings with overpriced Dewdrops? Pretending we’re sophisticated by going to an avant garde gallery featuring grass stains on the walls?”

“I don’t know!” Ivy slid from the sectional in a dramatic motion to lie down next to Ellie. “But something! Anything but feeling tired!”

Their complaints about being tired were frequent in their apartment. The feeling they had was not so much mere tiredness as it was an all-consuming weariness. A heaviness to their movements, even when fully-rested. Dragging their feet from task to task, spending energy to  _ not _ think about how it all seemed to just spiral into nothing. They weren’t just tired, but they weren’t anything else, really, at the end of every day they spent working sunrise to sunset in the Joja Corp headquarters.

During their first week at Voyage Acres, they weren’t tired: they were  _ exhausted _ . Throughout the day they plowed through the work of the farm, and found other things to fill the cracks of waiting time between planting their seeds and watching them grow. They finalized some tax paperwork, changed their addresses with their banks and magazine subscriptions and Zuzu University alumni network. They journeyed up to Robin’s house in the mountains, visiting her for the first time after she had welcomed them during their second day, and got her input on what insulation to order for the shed. They even contracted her to help them install it when the time came.

And when dinner was eaten and cleaned up, the crickets chirping like a slow metronome, they collapsed into their respective beds and slept like the dead through the night.

If they were sore in the morning, they didn’t feel it by noon.

If they were groggy without coffee after waking, the coolness of the morning woke them up.

Ivy finished reading a book she had been meaning to get to for years. Ellie went out into the fields that were still overgrown and perched herself on a boulder to sketch the trees in the afternoon sun.

They stopped complaining about how tired they were because they knew they weren’t. Not really.

*

The parsnip sprouts were easy to transfer, and they finished well before noon at the end of their first week.

“What else should we do?” Ivy asked, taking off her work gloves and shoving them into the pocket of her overalls.

Ellie pulled out her phone and scrolled through the to-do list manager, checking off  _ transfer parsnips _ with a tap of her thumb. She scrolled through the rest of the unfinished tasks. “Well, the insulation’s not going to get here until Wednesday, and the final notarized copy of the deed is being express shipped here. The parsnips won’t be ready for harvest until next week. And we’re waiting on the last paper to sign for us to get control of our retirement accounts from Joja. So we...don’t have anything to do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, we can maybe start clearing some land for a new crop field, but we can’t plant more crops until we have more seeds, which we can’t really purchase until either we finish transferring the retirement funds or until we sell our first parsnips.”

“Hmm, you’re right.” Ivy looked around at the small woods that the farm property had become after years of neglect. She had stumbled across several clumps of daffodils near the edge of a small pond near the southern pass that marked the edge of their property and the entrance to the Cindersnap Forest. When she picked a few and stuck them in a cleaned jar of pasta sauce filled with water, she marveled at the rich yellow color and the size of the flower heads. Even without deliberate arrangement, the flowers looked artful. “I wonder...what else could we get from this land in the meantime?”

*

After a few hours of hiking to and around the property lines, they walked to town with baskets laden with foraged goods. Bunches of daffodils tied with twine Ivy found in a drawer in the shed. Wild horseradish and leeks laid out in slanted rows, greens hanging over the edge of the basket. With Ellie holding the map and Ivy keeping an eye out for the landmarks indicated there, they found their way to the town square.

Ellie and Ivy had only been to the general store once, to buy some eggs they they kept cool in Ellie’s mini fridge. Pierre, the owner, had welcomed them heartily, offering with some bluster and boisterousness, to buy whatever they grew on the farm. Though a few other people were in the small shop — a broad-shouldered man with five o’clock shadow and a baggy blue hoodie and a purple-haired girl who was stacking and re-stacking a bunch of apples while they had that one, stilted conversation with Pierre — they didn’t introduce themselves and they walked immediately back to the farm before they could forget the direction they came from and get lost on the way home.

But they had barely stepped into the open, cobblestone square before a woman with light brown hair braided and thrown over one shoulder waved at them as she walked toward them. She had a canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder, and she smiled somewhat shyly at the two women. “Hello there! You must be the new farmers that just moved in.”

Ivy grinned and shifted her basket so that it rested further up her arm. She reached out a hand to shake Jodi’s. “Word gets around fast, huh? I’m Ivy. This here is Ellie.”

“Hi,” Ellie said, offering her hand for a somewhat weaker shake. “It’s nice to meet you…?”

“Jodi.” She peered into their baskets, her keen blue eyes perusing the contents. “And I see you’ve been making some great headway on getting that old farm up and running!”

“Oh, these—”

“They’re simple things, lightly cultivated from the wild foragables in the area,” Ivy interrupted, cutting across Ellie smoothly. “The valley is super friendly for leeks in particular. Anything catch your eye?”

“Oh no, that’s okay,” Jodi said, nose wrinkling briefly at the mention of leeks, but it quickly melted into a smile. “Once you have rhubarb, though, let me know! I can make a mean rhubarb pie.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Ivy said, grinning. “We’re headed to Pierre’s, though. Are you going that way?”

“That way...and a little past it,” Jodi admitted, looking guilty. “I know it’s not the healthiest, but the prices are so cheap, I’d be crazy to shop anywhere else!”

Ellie felt a jump in her chest at the mention of the conglomerate and former workplace, but Ivy smiled soothingly at the bashful woman. “Of course. No judgement here,” Ivy said, her voice warm and inviting.

Jodi smiled back, then started walking away from the pair. “Thanks. Ivy, right? I’ll probably see you around town. It’s a small community, but everyone is friendly. Don’t be a stranger!”

“See you!” Ivy waved and subtly nudged Ellie to wave, too.

“There’s a JojaMart? Even here?” Ellie said, moving her lips very little as she watched Jodi turn and walk away.

“There’s a JojaMart everywhere, it seems,” Ivy said, letting her hand drop to her side.

Sure enough, as they looked across the square, across the creek that ran from the mountains, they saw the sore, blue smile of the Joja logo. They stood for a moment just looking at it, like a specter from a past life come to haunt them, a tails-up 1g coin, an endless spiral.

Ellie sighed and heaved her basket further up her arm again. “Come on. We should get this stuff sold.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embarrassing Edit: In my rush to write this, I totally mixed up Stardew Valley starter parsnips and OG Animal Crossing turnips. Whoops! Fixed now.


	2. What Year Is It?

It is said that opposites attract, and the case of Ellie’s and Ivy’s friendship was no exception. They were the flip sides of each other’s coins, sharing the same gold-plated steel core. They had each other’s backs. After the first semester of living together — eating microwaved midnight snacks, and reading each other’s paper drafts, and sitting under the awning of a drugstore waiting out the rain after buying condoms for the first time because their first loves might be  _ the ones _ they would lose their virginity to — they realized they had both found a rare friend. The kind who was moving in the same direction, at the same pace, but with a different flair and mindset that acted as a complement, stretching the horizons of possibility.

But there were plenty of traits that Ivy had that Ellie wished she could emulate. As Ellie hefted the axe to her shoulder to swing it down into the log standing on the oak stump and split it cleanly in two, she examined them with a calm, keen internal eye. 

The easy small talk that flowed in every impromptu conversation. 

_ Thwack _ . 

The contagious laughter that followed every immediate, witty response. 

_ Thwack _ . 

The ability to give herself entirely to joy when it arose, and the ability to recognize happiness on first glance. 

_ Thwack. Thwack.  _

Ellie knew that there were traits of hers that Ivy sometimes envied. But Ellie wished for these few traits in particular, wished that she didn’t have the downscaled and somewhat delayed version of Ivy’s easygoing energy. Ellie had a nice smile, she knew, and a bottomless capacity for listening (“And you know me, Ell, I can’t listen as effortlessly as you can,” Ivy said on more than one occasion), but she came up with the best retorts the moment she walked away from a conversation. And while not overly morose, especially now, restoring the farm and feeling the endorphin rush that came with so much movement, she came to contentment with some wariness, worried that it would be taken away from her if she weren’t so vigilant. 

But that last one, the lingering doubt accompanying any happy feeling, she would gladly keep if only she could hold a conversation with strangers without the thrum of worry that made her heart beat faster. 

*

That morning, Ellie had woken with the rooster crow at sunrise and checked the forecast as she ate her cereal and milk. The afternoon and evening rains meant that neither she nor Ivy had to water the crops, and she texted Ivy with the good news. Ivy responded,  _ awesome, am sleeping for an extra forever byeee _ . Ellie laughed and shut off the TV when the fortune teller segment came on.

She showered, changed into her coveralls, and stood on the porch to look out at the clear dawn. The morning hours looked like they would be too beautiful to waste, with the heavy humidity of the pre-rain atmosphere blanketing her in comforting, trapped warmth. There was a section of land that she and Ivy wanted to clear for some bean poles, but they had gotten faster at felling the trees and the task could probably be snuck in before the rain started. 

As she admired the landscape, the dappled dawn light filling the space under the trees with a golden mist and columns of shadow. There were times when she worried about the dwindling starter money she and Ivy had set aside, at the dragging pace of the retirement transfer, and the remoteness of her living space, far from people who could rapidly respond to any emergency. But these mornings, filled with birdsong and a rolling wind that made the humidity less oppressive, especially in the shade, set her alight with contentment. Though there was so much she didn’t know how to do, so much that she still had to learn about the running of a farm, she felt equal to the task of learning it. This came easier to her than anything she had ever done so far in her life. 

She grabbed her basket from just inside the door and decided to forage for the spring onions that were cropping up in the Cindersnap Forest south of the property. Though she started off at a leisurely amble through the tall grass, she found herself picking up her pace to a light jog, feet light and swift with fresh air and sunlight. She ran to the bank of the river then followed it, hopping along the large rocks that bordered the rushing water. Her feet seemed to barely touch the rickety bridges from one side of the river to the island in the middle to the other side of the water; she didn’t look down. 

The green shoots of the young onions grew in thick clumps that made the slim bulbs easy to pluck from the ground. Soon, her basket was full, the bulbs rinsed by the river water, and there was still plenty left in the ground to forage later for selling or using at home.

It was still early morning by the time Ellie made her way to the town square. She approached from the south, passing by the houses on Willow Lane and waving at Jodi but not stopping to chat as the woman was in the middle of taking out her trash. 

She dawdled in front of Pierre’s reading the notices on the bulletin board and studying the calendar to memorize the townspeople’s birthdays. Lewis’s birthday had already passed, though he seemed happy enough to accept the belated birthday gift of some maki rolls Ivy had made clumsily using plastic wrap instead of the bamboo rolling mat she was used to. There was a new want ad from a man named Sebastian who wanted fresh produce to toss against the side of the mountain. Chuckling, Ellie took a photo of the ad with her phone, adding it to her to-do list. She hoped that a tough parsnip would provide the same satisfactory splat that any other fruit or vegetable would provide. 

Pierre appeared in the glass door and opened the top and bottom locks so that the door swung with an easy push. “Just you this morning, Ellie?”

“It’s raining later today, so Ivy’s sleeping in,” Ellie said. 

Pierre, who grew much of the fresh produce he sold, nodded in understanding. “What have you got for me?”

They unloaded the onions on the shop counter, leaving a few in the basket for Ellie to take home. Pierre weighed each bundle on the scale, punching numbers into the large-number calculator. Ellie took out her phone and brought up her shopping list, reminding herself if she needed to pick up anything in particular. 

“You use OmegaList too?”

Ellie jumped at the voice that sounded in her ear and whipped around to the source. 

The purple-haired girl that Ellie and Ivy had glimpsed on their first day in Pierre’s stood very close, and the startled look she had when Ellie moved so suddenly had melted away into a friendly smile. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. I just saw the purple logo on your screen and had to ask.” She pointed to the lilac, stylized omega in the corner. 

“You shouldn’t snoop into people’s personal business, Abigail,” Pierre said in a stern voice, not looking up from his weighing and calculating. 

The girl — Abigail — rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t  _ snooping _ , I just  _ noticed _ , Dad.” She turned back to Ellie and grinned. “And I don’t believe we’ve actually been introduced. Call me Abby.”  _ Not Abigail _ was a clear, unspoken instruction as she offered her hand for a shake. 

“Oh! Right.” Ellie took Abby’s hand and shook once, ready to let go, except Abby held on.

“Come on, that was such a weaksauce shake.” Abby laughed, gripping harder so that Ellie had to respond in kind. “Or — do you want to have a secret shake? Like one of those super complicated ones that involve going around the back?”

“What?”

“Like, in that movie, with the twins? Except they were played by one actress?”

“I—”

Abby let go, but Ellie’s hand still hovered in place. “We should keep it simple though. We did just meet.” She lightly slapped Ellie’s palm with hers, then the backs, then slid around the wrist to grab Ellie’s forearm. “What do you think? Looks cool even though it’s only like three moves.”

“Abby, leave her alone,” Pierre said. He sighed and glanced at Ellie as he wrote down the final tally. “You can ignore her, if you like. We sent her to the closest Ferngill Public School, but she still turned out socially stunted.” Though his face was solemn, his eyes contained a fond, amused spark at Abby’s noise of indignation.

“Excuse  _ you _ , I’m perfectly socialized—”

“500g for the lot,” Pierre said, cutting across his daughter to address Ellie, now grinning openly. At Ellie’s surprised expression, he chuckled and said, “I threw in a little extra for putting up with my daughter—”

“Oh,  _ what _ —” Abby ran around to the back of the counter and pounced on her dad, punching him on the arm. She laughed as he shifted her around into a light headlock, ruffling her hair.

“500...sounds...good…” Ellie said, watching the two with wide eyes. She took the money from Pierre, who was able to keep his hold on Abby while he took the money from the till with one hand. 

“Don’t worry, this is normal for them” another voice said behind her, startling her yet again. She turned and saw a tall man, his glasses smudged at the edges and his hair flattened slightly on one side. Despite the general unkemptness, he had a friendly smile, the smallness of the movement accentuated by the curled ends of his mustache. “I’m Harvey, by the way. I run the clinic just next door.”

“El-Ellie. I’m Ellie.” She took the doctor’s offered hand and let go before he could pull a fast one like Abby. “Are they really usually like this?”

Harvey laughed, a low chuckle that made the corners of his eyes crinkle, and nodded. “But don’t worry. You get used to it.”

“I suppose…”

Harvey nodded and lifted his hand as if to place it on Ellie’s shoulder, but then hesitated and let it drop by his side again. He looked into the basket on Ellie’s arm. “Spring onions? I like those. Especially on eggs in the morning. Let me know whenever you have extra?”

“Or you can buy some from me right now!” Pierre said from the counter, releasing Abby to wave at Harvey. 

*

Ellie booked it out of the store as fast as she could after that, and started clearing the land solo, working until she had a decent pile of lumber. She deposited the wood in the covered enclave next to the house. Though she knew she had nothing to be embarrassed about, and that the flow of conversation can go on around her without other people noticing she hardly contributed herself, the nervousness wiped her mind blank, and she kicked herself for all the funny things she  _ didn’t _ say. 

She leaned the axe against the side of the house, then let herself lean into it as well. It will just take time, she knew, to get comfortable with new people, to open up again. But there was some part of her that wanted it to happen sooner rather than later. 

The shed door opened, and Ellie saw Ivy poke her head out, dark hair brushed and braided, but still dressed in pajamas. She squinted at the gathering clouds that were blowing towards the farm, still heavy-lidded from sleep. 

“What year is it?” Ivy called to Ellie when she noticed her standing on the porch. 

“You’ve been asleep for a century,” Ellie called back. “I’m Ellie’s granddaughter, Eliana. She told me about you. She warned me not to open the shed lest I wake the gremlin inside.”

“Oh shush,” Ivy said. She opened the door wider. “Have brunch with me.”

“You mean,  _ make _ you brunch, I’m sure.”

“Same thing.” Ivy disappeared back into the shed.

Ellie hopped off the porch and walked over, a strong breeze at her back. She reached the door just as she felt a single raindrop on top of her head, and she entered Ivy’s space quickly, shutting out the start of the rain.

In the short time she’s lived there, Ivy filled all of the corners of the shed, giving the single-room home a cozy feeling. The lamps around the room gave off a warm glow, and the raindrops hitting the roof provided a comfortable white noise that they could ignore. Ivy pulled an old-fashioned percolator from the cabinet and set it on one of the two burners of the portable stove she kept on the counter. The other burner already had a cast-iron frying pan with a flame going, a pat of butter melting as the metal heated.

“What did you get up to?” Ivy asked, spooning coffee grounds into the top of the coffeemaker. 

“Picked some spring onions in the forest and sold them at Pierre’s.” Ellie dug around the mini fridge for the eggs and the loaf of bread from the pantry. “Met Pierre’s daughter. Abby? And the doctor from the clinic next door. Harvey.”

“Abby, Harvey, Abby, Harvey,” Ivy chanted, committing the names to memory. “So that’s two more people met. How many people live here again?”

“Less than thirty, last I checked,” Ellie sighed. “We’ve only met, like, what, a fifth of them? And I’m already exhausted.”

“Too much? Meeting what, six people?” Ivy asked, a little teasing. 

Ellie groaned. “It’s ridiculous if you put it that way…”

“Hey.” Ivy nudged Ellie, then wrapped her arms around her friend. “It’s okay. This is totally different from anything either of us have been through. You know?”

“I guess…”

“We can take our time with meeting people,” Ivy said, stepping away from her friend but keeping a hold on her shoulders. “We’re not going anywhere. And it’s likely that they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We don’t have to do everything all at once, you know?”

Ellie nodded, and started cracking eggs into the bowl.  _ This _ was why she stayed around Ivy. Even though Ivy probably would have been halfway to bosom buddies with half the people in town by now, she knew when to pause and wait for Ellie, knew that it just took time for her to warm up. 

And now, they had nothing  _ but _ time. Ellie was surprised by how much she had gotten done that day, and the day wasn’t even over yet. Even though Ivy slept for half the day, there were so many hours left that it didn’t matter how much they dawdled. 

But even though they had the freedom to be languid and loose, they felt more motivated to keep moving than they ever had in the city. They made french toast together, stepping around each other with practiced ease, and ate it at the small table next to one of the wide windows. The scarf that usually covered it was pulled back to frame the view of the farm in the steady downpour. This was nice, the full meal and the chance to appreciate every bite with the rain watering their crops. What to do, though, with the rest of their energy. Even Ellie, who had been awake and gathering since the morning, felt restless.

What was there to do on a rainy day?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm trying to balance introducing these two women with also introducing the townspeople and the central line of tension in these first few chapters, though focusing more on the women than anything else. Hopefully it's working on some level. Would love any feedback you have!
> 
> You can also catch me on [tumblr](https://polyproticamory.tumblr.com). I don't blog there as much as I used to, but I've decided that I'm going to post additional blogs about my thoughts on this fic when the mood strikes me. You can read about why I decided to start writing this story [here](https://polyproticamory.tumblr.com/post/185356886242/this-year-a-stardew-valley-fic-chapter-one).
> 
> Thanks again for checking this story out! Keep your eyes peeled for more chapters soon.


	3. Hear Their Ocean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: Some language. And I've decided to update the rating instead of leaving it unrated; even though this story is building slowly, I want to give myself the freedom to take on more "mature" themes, just in case. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Ivy would never admit it, but she didn’t like Ellie at first, and was worried that her first year of college — her first time living away from home, ever — was going to be ruined by this stick-up-her-ass-and-in-the-mud roommate. Ellie was always in the dorm when she wasn’t in class, was  _ too clean _ in their ensuite bathroom, and in general gave off the air that there was to be  _ no fun allowed _ in their room. No parties. No boys. No loud noises in general. Seriously, even the sound of Ivy accidentally banging closed her dresser drawer made the other girl flinch.

That initial impression was immediately reversed when Ellie did Ivy a solid. Three weeks into the semester was the biggest dorm party so far, just two floors above theirs in the building’s only seven-person suite. But someone, rumored to be some frat guys pulling a prank on the girls, called in a noise complaint that the RA had to investigate. 

The party was a shitshow. Makeout games in the university-provided oversized wardrobes. Pot being smoked in the bathroom with the fan running. Alcohol and, of course, underaged drinking. 

When the RA on duty showed up and started making the rounds writing up everyone who was in the room, Ivy and a few other girls had bolted out the open door before the poor, overworked grad student could get to them. Ivy stumbled into the dorm room, reeking of tequila and lime. Ellie looked horrified for all of thirty seconds before she heard more ruckus in the hallway from others who had the same idea to risk running from the party. 

Ellie closed and bolted the door to the room with a faint click, then shoved Ivy into the bathroom. “Get in,” Ellie said, pointing to the tub.

“Need to strip for that, Ell,” Ivy giggled, her face still flushed. “Me, I mean. Not you.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, then gently pushed Ivy down so that she sat in the tub, hauling her legs over the edge. She closed the curtain then turned on the water, making Ivy yelp at the sudden shower. 

“Hey!”

There was a loud knock on the door, followed by a loud, “RA on duty, open up.” Ivy gasped and peeked out of the shower curtain at Ellie, who held a finger to her lips. She left the bathroom and closed the door, but Ivy could still hear their voices through the thin walls. 

“What? What’s going on?”

“Oh, sorry to wake you Ellie. But I need to speak to Ivy.”

“In the shower,” Ellie said, and Ivy could hear the convincing, sleepy tone to Ellie’s voice. “Has been for ages. It’s a hair wash day. What time is it?”

“Almost eleven.”

“Yeah, it takes her, like, an hour and a half to do the whole thing.”

“Wha — are you serious?”

“Yeah, she has a whole thing. Shampoo. Conditioner. Deep conditioner. Damage repair balm. Something else that I can’t remember. And then she does it again if it’s been really humid.”

“I...so she’s been in the shower…?”

“What time did you say it was again?”

“Almost eleven.”

“Yeah, so she has like forty-five minutes left. She must have just started her second go.”

And on it went. Ellie lied for a full five minutes to the RA, insisting that Ivy had been home the whole night, but never sounding defensive. Instead, she just sounded tired, resigned and exasperated, like the questions were a nuisance, and Ivy could imagine the way the RA would squirm with discomfort, picking up on Ellie’s displeasure. Ellie had a gift for subtly making other people feel bad for disturbing her; it was a gift that she directed at Ivy many times.

Since then, Ivy tried not to cling too tightly to her first impressions. Though she might be a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of person, she learned that others might not be the same. Instead of judging just the shell of a person, she learned to put her ear to them so that she could hear their ocean.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

*

So far in Pelican Town, Ivy hadn’t met anyone who wasn’t an easy read at first glance. Lewis had the wisdom of age and the obstinacy of a long-serving elected official. Pierre had his business pride and his insecurity about his competitors worn on his sleeve. And Ivy felt comfortable in doubling down on these readings, because Ellie mostly corroborated them after she got to know the people more and more.

It was a little funny to think that Ellie was the one getting out in town and meeting all of the locals way more so than Ivy. But they worked on different schedules, and Ivy’s long morning naps meant that she missed a lot of the prime time activity in town, like people running errands or just taking a walk through the gorgeous mountain scenery. Ellie liked to leave the farm property when the morning chores were done, going on foraging runs and getting to know the few roads and trails that the small town provided. It was natural that she would run into people, get to know them and have a small chat. 

“Abby — Pierre’s daughter — says that she hangs out in the Saloon on Fridays with Sebastian and Sam,” Ellie said one night. The days were getting even longer, and Ellie and Ivy pushed their dinner hour back later and later to take advantage of the light hours for clearing more of the farm and exploring the area.

“Who are Sebastian and Sam?” Ivy asked, stacking their dinner dishes and putting them in Ellie’s sink. She started filling one side with soapy water, and handed Ellie the drying towel.

“Sebastian is Robin’s son, and Sam is Jodi’s oldest. I’ve only met them once, though, walking around.”

“What are they like?” Ivy asked, her voice teasingly, exaggeratingly patient. “What do they look like? What are their hobbies? What’s their story? Come on, Ell, you gotta give me more than that.”

Ellie laughed and rolled her eyes. “I just told you I’ve had like, one conversation each, and both times I was too distracted by wanting to  _ leave _ said conversation as quickly as possible.” She snapped the towel at Ivy before taking the washed plate from her to dry. “But I mean, Sam’s nice? Like, very nice. Reminds me of you, kinda. Like, when you’re caffeinated and get to meet new people. And then Seb’s the complete opposite. Kinda morose. Melancholy? I sold him one of our parsnips because he posted a want ad about throwing produce at a mountainside.”

“What?” Ivy laughed and handed Ellie a cup. “For real?”

“It was kinda funny, actually? Like, he held it by the greens to whirl it around and wind up before tossing it.”

“So what you’re telling me is that Sam and Sebastian are like you and me, only male.”

“And white.”

Ivy nodded, and scrubbed at a speck of spinach clinging to some cheese on the plate. “But anyway, Friday, you said?”

“So tomorrow night. We can get food at the Saloon, too. I ran into Gus while he was getting ingredients for some of the stuff on the menu.”

“Geez, who haven’t you met yet?” Ivy laughed, rinsing soap suds off the plate. 

“I have no idea. I’m trying not to think about it too much,” Ellie said. She stacked the clean dishes on the counter, opening the cabinets to put everything away. “I figure that I can’t escape meeting everyone, but I’m not going to worry about it before I meet them. Do you know what I mean?”

“So like, rather than agonizing over having the perfect conversation with people the first time you meet them,” Ivy said, drying her hands and then folding her arms, leaning against the counter, “you’re just gonna wing it, because it’s not like you’re only going to ever see these people once in your life. You have time to get to know people, and the first impression doesn’t matter.”

“Yep,” Ellie said, closing the cabinet door. 

Ivy nodded, then cracked a smile. “You know, that’s what I’ve been saying for years, right?”

Ellie groaned and rolled her eyes. “Shut up. I know.”

*

The Stardrop Saloon was nothing like the dive bars Ivy visited in the Zuzu City. In the city, the dim lighting and the loud music hid how flimsy the establishments really were. The faux-diner facade of the bar on Astral Place. The sticky, fake wood dance floor of the karaoke bar in Comet Circle. The thin toilet paper in the Mercury Street bar bathrooms (let alone the state of the bathrooms themselves). 

Instead, Pelican Town’s watering hole was a big, bright space with polished wood floors and walls, a jukebox in the corner playing something merry but unobtrusive under the general buzz of conversation. The long bar at the back of the room had an impressive array of liquor bottles and a few taps, and Gus waved when he saw them come through the door. 

“Ellie! Good to see ya!” Gus called, waving his bar mop. 

Some of the familiar faces — Mayor Lewis, Robin, Pierre— turned from their conversations and smiled at the two women, lifting their drinks in a kind of salute.

“Welcome, ladies! It’s good to see you out and about,” Mayor Lewis said as they passed his table. “This is Marnie, by the way,” he said, gesturing to the woman he was sharing a table with.

“Nice to meet you, Marnie. I’m Ellie.” She stuck out her hand to shake the curvy woman’s hand, smiling shyly. “And this is Ivy.”

“Hi,” Ivy said, shaking Marnie’s hand in turn.

“The new farmers!” Marnie said, lifting her martini glass. “If you’re ever thinking about expanding your operation to include some animals, I can always sell you a few!”

“Now Marnie,” Lewis chided, fondly, “they’ve just gotten settled. Surely they have to work up to getting animals for some time.”

Marnie giggled and leaned in closer to the Mayor. “Of course I know that, L, that’s why I said  _ if _ they’re thinking of animals.” She tapped Lewis’s nose and then let her hand fall briefly onto his, resting on the table, before moving it away in a subtle movement.

Ivy caught Ellie’s eye, then cleared her throat. “Well, we’re going to get some drinks at the bar. Talk later!”

Ellie and Ivy smiled and walked quickly, weaving around the other empty tables. “Go Lewis,” Ivy murmured under her breath, glancing back at the pair they just left.

“Psh, whatever. Go Marnie. Get it, girl.”

Ivy laughed and sat down on one of the bar stools. “Rum and coke as usual?”

“Yeah, sounds good. And maybe, ooh, spaghetti?” Ellie said, perusing the menu. “That sounds so good right now, not gonna lie.”

“Spaghetti’s not bar food, Ell.”

“We’re not in a bar, Ives.”

The other bartender, a bouncy, blue-haired woman sidled up to them and caught their attention before Ivy could retort. “There’s always pizza if you’re going for the college-sports-bar feel. Nice ‘n’ greasy, just like the best 5g slice you can get in Zuzu.”

“Now,  _ 5g pizza _ sounds  _ so _ good right now. Come on, Ell. We can eat responsibly at home. If we’re out, we might as well be out.”

“A whole pizza though?” 

“Treat yo’self,” the blue-haired woman said, grinning. “I’ll come back to you two in a minute. I’m Emily, by the way!” She grinned, then made her way over to the man at the end of bar who set an empty glass on the counter, staring intently at the beer list. 

“Maybe we can share with Abby? And the other two, what were their names again?”

“Sam and Sebastian. Yeah, maybe we can just get a cheese and they can add whatever toppings. But,” Ellie sat up straighter in her seat and looked around the room, “I don’t see her.”

“It’s pretty crowded in here,” Ivy said, also scanning. “Maybe we’re just not seeing her.”

“Trust me, we’d be able to see her.”

Before Ivy could ask, the door opened again and the two of them looked towards it. A purple-haired girl —  _ Probably Abby _ , Ivy thought — walked in, talking over her shoulder to a guy with a blond mullet who looked like he was trying not to laugh at whatever the girl was saying. Immediately after them came a guy dressed in all black, with hair falling over one eye, and a blank, almost bored expression on his face. The three of them started walking to one side of the room without going up to the bar, but Ellie waved and called out, “Abby!”

Abby looked away from Sam, then returned Ellie’s wave with a beaming smile and a frantic wave of her own. She grabbed both boys’ wrists and dragged them over to the bar. “Ellie! Hey!” She held her hand out expectantly, and grinned.

A blush creeped up the back of Ellie’s neck. She slapped the other girl’s palm, then the backs of their hands, and then their fingers tangled together when they both tried to maneuver around to end the handshake. The purple-haired girl laughed, holding Ellie’s hand for a brief moment.

Ivy gave a subtle cough, and Ellie jumped at the sound. “Oh, and this is my friend, Ivy. She’s living with me at the farm.”

“Oh please, Ell, I’m more than a friend,” Ivy teased, tossing an arm around the other woman. She grinned at Abby, whose eyes lit up with curiosity. “I’m her platonic life partner. Emphasis on ‘platonic’ and ‘life.’”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “She gave herself that title.”

“But you don’t dispute it.”

“I do not.” Ellie sighed, but grinned and patted Ivy’s hand on her shoulder. “Anyway, we were about to order a pizza, but definitely can’t eat a whole one ourselves. Want to split?”

“Better make it two pizzas. These two are too old to be in the teenage-boys-eating-everything phase, but you wouldn’t know it.” Abby pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the two guys, and the blond one clutched at his heart in mock hurt. 

“Abby, please. Seb and I are still growing—”

“What, even taller than you two are now—?”

“And we need nourishment! Protein in dairy, carbohydrates in the crust, and whatever tomatoes can provide in the sauce!” Sam looked at Ivy with a pleading look. “You understand, right?”

Ivy scoffed. “As a woman who stands at five-two when I’m being good about posture, I personally do not think you need any more growing, man.” She turned to Ellie. “I’m guessing this one is Sam?”

“And Sebastian,” Ellie said, jerking her chin up in greeting at the quiet man in black. “From what I’ve seen they come in a set.”

Sebastian gave a cough that could have been a laugh. “It’s unhealthy, really. We should really stop being so codependent.”

“We’re eating pizza for dinner. We have no reason to judge healthiness of decisions,” Ivy said. She paused and glanced at Ellie again. “And besides, nothing wrong with codependency. Ellie’s the one who inherited the farm. I’m really just a beneficiary, disguised as moral support.”

Ellie laughed, and turned to Emily when she re-appeared behind the bar. “Two cheese pizzas, please.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embarrassing Edit: In my rush to write this, I totally mixed up Stardew Valley starter parsnips and OG Animal Crossing turnips. Whoops! Fixed now.


End file.
